Aquarium and Diablita!

Happy weekend!  I am so glad that it's finally here and I don't have many things that I need to do.  I mean, there are a lot of things I should do, but I'll get to them :)


Yesterday I needed to pick up a few things from the store.  I planned on going to TJ's, but once I started driving I decided that was too far and I went to Whole Foods instead.  On the way I crunched on apple crunchers.

There have been times that I have not been happy with the WF in Harbor East, but I was loving it yesterday!  Maybe because it was the morning and a weekday?  I hate peak-grocery-shopping hours.

When I got back, I made a panini out of turkey, artichoke hearts, mayo, and mozzarella cheese.  I love my Griddler.  And I think this was the best panini I've made on it yet!

My afternoon snack before my class orientation was applesauce bread.

Then I stole Kat's idea and we headed out to the Aquarium!  We haven't been in about a year, and it was awesome that it was only $8!  Not even as crowded as I thought it would be.  I ate another vitamuffin on the way so I wouldn't be dieing to eat dinner.


Here are some of the photos that actually turned out:

It was fun!  The jellyfish exhibit was especially cool and we hadn't gotten to see it last time we were there.


For dinner, I wanted to try a restaurant that I had been reading a lot about online and was pretty close by: Diablita in Little Italy.  We hadn't been to a Mexican restaurant in Baltimore since we moved here and I really wanted to find one that we could like.  That is not what we found.


The restaurant itself was really cute.  Great exposed brick walls and nice lighting.  The staff was super friendly and helpful.  But the food.  Not so much.


We started off with drinks and appetizers.  I got a pomegranate margarita, which was easily the best part of the meal.  G got a classic margarita and it was also really good.  We settled on trying to trio of salsas, which came with Smokey chipotle, red chile diablo, tomatillo verde, and assorted house-made chips (sorry about the horrible photos).

I liked the tomatillo verde and the chipotle salsas.  G only liked the verde.  Both of us thought the red chile diablo was awful.  To me, it tasted like cold pasta sauce.  There was no kick to any of these either, and we like spicy food, especially in a Mexican restaurant (even if they are trying to do some kind of "fusion" thing).

For dinner, I had the Chipotle Chicken Salad tacos, which were described as having traditional guacamole, red skin potatoes, romaine, chile-honey vinaigrette and served on grilled white corn tortillas with rice & beans, pico de gallo and cilantro sour cream.

 

I wasn't impressed with these either.  They were served at room temperature (which I figured because of the "salad") and they just weren't anything special.  I couldn't identify any unique flavors or textures.  Basically, I could have made these.  The rice was dry and not hot.  G got a burrito and he wasn't crazy about it either.  We were a little puzzled over why there wasn't any hot sauce on the tables (again, Mexican restaurant?) and the food runner even seemed perplexed about us asking for it.  Maybe they don't want us to compromise the food's "integrity".  The hot sauce helped, but not enough.   We had thought about trying their churros, but decided to throw in the towel.  For everything we got, the bill was a little much, but that was probably because of the drinks.  I would say, try them for brunch because that menu looks nice.  Go to the bar for drinks.  Maybe try their desserts.  But their dinners are nothing special.  So now we need to find another Mexican restaurant...

So instead, we stumbled to the nearby Whole Foods (again) and got cookies.  I got a snickerdoodle, which is pretty much an American churro, right?

Oh well.  I'm still glad we went because I love trying new restaurants!  We also passed by Milan, which is getting a lot of hype because they just opened.  I wonder how that is...

Breakfast was more cinnamon with cinnamon-sugar toast with Earth Balance.

I feel like I'm on the edge of a flood with my school work, so maybe I'll get cracking on that.  Have a good weekend!

And of course my question today is: Do you know of a really good Mexican restaurant in the Baltimore area?